Luis Carrero Blanco

Luis Carrero Blanco (4 March 1904-20 December 1973) was the Prime Minister of Spain from 9 June to 20 December 1973, succeeding Francisco Franco and preceding Torcuato Fernandez-Miranda. He was assassinated by the Basque ETA separatist group in a car bombing in the capital of Madrid in 1973.

Biography
Luis Carrero Blanco was born on 4 March 1904 in Santona, Cantabria, Spain, and he entered the Naval Military School in 1918 before fighting in the Rif War alongside General Francisco Franco. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he was forced to flee to the embassies of Mexico and France by the Republican forces before he could join the army of Franco, and he became his chief of naval operations. During World War II, he opposed entering the war on the side of the Axis Powers, and he was more of a monarchist than a fascist. During the liberalization of Spain's market in the 1950s, Blanco proposed economic integration with other markets in Europe, and in 1973 he was made Prime Minister of Spain after holding several military commands under Franco.

On 20 December 1973, a mere six months after becoming Prime Minister, Blanco was assassinated by an ETA car bomb near the San Francisco de Borja church in Madrid, with the ETA claiming that he symbolized "pure Francoism" and had attempted to bring the Catholic Opus Dei institution into power. His successor Carlos Arias Navarro would start liberalizing Spain, leading to the end of the Franco dictatorship.